Yahoo adds two new email domains

Ymail and Rocketmail available today

By Juan Carlos Perez | 19 June 08

Yahoo is adding two new domains to its Yahoo Mail webmail service in order to make millions of new addresses available to current and future account holders.

Starting today, the service will offer addresses in two other domains besides yahoo.com: ymail.com and rocketmail.com. Users with existing accounts in Yahoo Mail or other webmail services will be able to migrate their messages and contacts to accounts in the new domains, said John Kremer, Yahoo Mail vice-president.

"We have a lot of email addresses out there, and we want to make available more attractive ones," said Kremer.

Yahoo Mail, launched in 1997, has about 260 million users worldwide, so when creating a new account, people have to get very creative to hit upon an available address, often ending up with one that is convoluted and hard to remember.

Accounts in the two new domains will work in exactly the same way as yahoo.com addresses. As with yahoo.com, people will be able to sign up for addresses with country-specific extensions of the two new domains.

In conjunction with eBay Giving Works and Auction Cause, Yahoo will auction some desirable email addresses it has reserved and donate the proceeds to the following charity organisations: The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Ocean Conservancy, The Point Foundation, Right to Play and World Wildlife Fund. The auction will begin today.

Ymail.com is a domain Yahoo has never used, while rocketmail.com belonged to the email provider Yahoo acquired in 1997 and relaunched later as Yahoo Mail.